Editorial: Why must we pay for more TV channels than we watch?

Lara Spencer, center, of the ABC network's "Good Morning America," show dances to a Mariachi band. In a joint venture, Univision and ABC launch Fusion, the first English-language cable network custom-made for young Hispanics. It joins hundreds of other cable channels available to cable viewers.

It’s a question that likely has occurred to many a cable TV customer as they’ve forked over ever-increasing amounts of money to pay their monthly bills: Why am I paying so much to get a hundred channels I don’t watch?

It’s a question that U.S. Sen. John McCain has pursued doggedly for years in an effort to pressure cable and satellite television providers to offer a la carte television pricing.

To that end, McCain, an Arizona Republican, has introduced a bill intended to allow television watchers to pay only for the channels they want to watch.

Though the political winds are blowing hard against the effort, advancing technology and the support of some prominent voices could give the idea more traction.

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We hope so.

Between 1995 and 2012, the price of expanded basic cable went up 6.1 percent per year, according to the Federal Communications Commission. That increase has far outpaced inflation.

“The 82 percent of American households that subscribe to cable or satellite television are stuck paying escalating prices for ‘bundles’ packages of more than 100 channels, despite the fact that the average viewer tunes in to only about 18 of them,” McCain wrote in an op-ed published earlier this year in the Los Angeles Times.

While McCain says his legislation to push per-channel pricing would be voluntary, he’s underplaying the regulatory pressure he wants to engage.

His bill would require cable providers to offer a la carte pricing if they want to take advantage of compulsory licenses. The licenses allow cable operators to pay a set fee to certain content owners and provide for the retransmission of broadcast signals.

The McCain bill also would limit the practice of local television blackouts of nearby sporting events.

While McCain’s quest for reform is not new, changes in television programming delivery are. Hulu, Netflix and other operations allow viewers more discretion in choosing what programming they want to pay for. Advancing technology will add momentum to calls for a la carte pricing.

Without a doubt, passage of the bill is still a heavy lift. But changes in the industry and consumer frustration with the increasingly outdated notion of channel bundling eventually will bring change, whether cable companies like it or not.